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Show THE RICH COUNTY REAPER. RANDOLPH. UTAH Increase in Acreage of Hybrid Com Is Proving Profitable to U. S. Farmer LITTLE MISS PURITAN ms By ALICE P. SHARPLESS (McClure Syndicate (Released by Western Newspaper Union.) Hybrid corn, which produces bigger crops on a smaller acreage, has brought to agriculture, for the first time, the industrial technique of standardized parts and mass HELEN production. open-pollinat- on. ed . - Service.) TRENT drained her cup and pushed her away untouched. Her light hail lay in moist ringlets on her temples and her soft, dark eyes were shadowed by circles. It was an awful day, Alma. Even Dr. Pollack was cross. No saint can be perfect all the time, said her sister. Ignoring the sarcasm, Helen went CHICAGO. Hybrid is a tough, pugilistic sort of corn. It battles storms and other vicissitudes of the weather successfully. It beats off the attacks of bugs and disease. But most important, it yields from 10 to 25 per cent more per acre than the old types of corn. Moreover, it is of superior quality. Practically unknown to the average farmer five years ago, hybrid corn, it is estimated, will be planted on nearly 20,000,000 acres this spring. Most farmers who have grown hybrid are delighted with the results they have obtained. Few, however, know how or why it came, about. It all goes back nearly a century to an old monastery garden in Austria. There Gregor Johann Mendel, peasant by birth, monk and abbot of Brunn, devoted hours of patient research to plant breeding. In time he discovered the rules which govern the inheritance of characters and the way those characters can be separated by inbreeding. In. 1865 he published a monograph entitled Research on Hybridization." The paper attracted little attention. It was not until 1900, or 16 years after Mendels death, that interest was kindled in his startling discovery. Testing Mendels Theory. Then scientists in this country began to use corn to test out Mendels theories. G. H. Shull, at the Carnegie experiment station, E. M. East at the University of Illinois, and Donald F. Jones at the University of Connecticut, did the pioneer work. They found that by breeding a corn plant to itself (selfing by fertilizing the- silks of a plant with pollen from the same plant) strains were developed that looked poor but did amazing things when crossed with another inbred strain. Doctor Jones paved the way for the modem hybrid industry by suggesting, in 1919, the method now generally used for combining inbred lines into hybrid combinations known as double crosses. ' First step, as has been pointed WNU HYBRID WINS CROWN C. E. Troyer of LaFontaine, Ind., whose hybrid corn won him the corn king title at last year's international livestock exposition, is congratulated by his friends. out, is selfing. The breeder starts hybridization. with a good ear from some standNow the standard parts are availard, productive variety. After plant- able for marketing to the farmer as ing, he covers the shoots with a commercial hybrid seed. Mass propaper bag before the silks are ex- duction is the next step. posed. When the tassels start to Fertilization Important. shed their pollen, the silks are One of the important results of the carefully fertilized and then kept switch to hybrid is the change it covered so that no other pollen can has wrought in the attitude of many reach them. farmers toward fertilization. StatisResult Is Amazing. ticians have figured out that 50 bushNext step is to cross these els of corn (not a remarkably high The result of this single yield as hybrids go) removes about cross is startling. For some rea- 75 pounds of nitrogen from the soil. son that science cannot yet explain, It takes out about 21 pounds of phosthe offspring of these runty inbreds phorus and about 41 pounds of potis an amazingly strong, vigorous ash. Bigger yields naturally make even greater demands on the soils and large plant. Then the breeder takes two single fertility. crosses which tests have proved to Thus, remarkable as hybrid seed be good and crosses them. This is, it has to be accompanied by a double cross is a combination of program of soil manfour inbred parents. Again the tedi- agement and the use of fertilizer if ous process of trial and error is re- results, in the form of high producpeated until the breeder finally gets tion, are to be maintained. Only a combination that includes high then is there a satisfactory replaceyielding ability, strong roots, stiff ment of the essential plant food elestalks and a high quality ear with a ments which hybrid corn removes mysterious vigor that results from from the soil. well-round- ed Robot Observer Aids U. S. Weather Forecasters He scolded and fumed and then blamed it on me. He said I was touchy and old maidish. What do you care! Alma! You know I care a lot what he thinks. Ive worked for him since I was eighteen and hes always been wonderful not like most bosses. Nor you like most secretaries. I think youve always been half in love with him. Helens delicate face flushed. Dont joke about that. You know hes married. Not so happily. He never said so. Its only things Ive pieced together. No. Ever since Ive been there she has been in California nursing an invalid mother. He says her mother is dying. Shes been a long time at it. Maybe theyre getting a divorce? No. Hes crazy about her, so his patients say. Well, dont worry over his troubles. I dont. Only it makes me unhappy when hes like he was today. Then why dont you marry Bob? No! No! she cried passionately. Then, taking a deep breath, she went on primly. Bob wouldnt like it. His voice was I understand. tomorrow Im after dull. Day starting on a months trip. Break in a girl while Im gone. That will be all this morning. Doctor! She could not bear that they should part like this. Yes? Oh, the wedding present. Could you pick it out? Tears welled up in Helens dark eyes. she cried and fled abruptly. No! When Dr. Pollack returned to his office a month later he found everything, even the girl bent over the typewriter, looking familiar. Good-mornin- g, he said gruffly. The girl turned and he cried sharpHelen! What are you doing ly. here? A fluh overspread her face and she stammered a bit. Why, you wanted me to stay so here I am. For a minute he stood, jingling the keys in his pocket and staring past her through the open window. Im sorry. Ive been thinking and youre right. A married womans place is in her home. You mean you dont want me here? Not that. I cant have you here since youre married. The girl walked to the window. She stood there twisting the shade cord and examining it carefully as she spoke. I was going to tell you later Im not married! He strode to her side What? and whirled her around. Once again the painful flush stole over her face and neck. But she answered quietly, though bitterly. Your diagnosis was quite right. I am a perfect old maid. When it came to choose between my job and a husband, I took my job. . Helen! Why? Did I She managed a smile and shrugged. He shook her shoulder You sound like Dr. Pollack. He impatiently. said I needed a man. Dont fool with me now. Did Helen! Was he making love to Their eyes met. His arms closed around her. you? No no. It was nothing, only Darling! If you knew the hell she trailed off into an uncomfortaIve been through! ble silence. After a second she gently freed her sister gently herself. Darling, Whats the matter? Dont you squeezed her arm. Do take Bob. He loves you. Dont waste your love me after all? time over a married man and one Yes, I love you entirely. But I who cares nothing about you, at havent forgotten your wife. that. My wife? he echoed stupidly. Angrily Helen jerked- away and Yes," she was angry now, the started toward her own room. At woman whose picture Ive dusted the door she called back. every morning, the woman you marHe does care for me, as a ried years ago and who once must friend. have meant everything to you, to As an efficient machine! about judge from your own words. how much work he can get out of For a second longer he looked at you! her in the same stupid astonishThats not trueJ And I tell you, ment. Then he began to laugh. Still I am thinking seriously of getting laughing he caught her once more married. Dont tell Bob. in his arms. Her sister laughed skeptically. You little idiot! I thought you Ive heard that before, too. had tumbled to the gag ages ago. Helen' slammad her door. Then I havent any wife, nor ever did she began' to dress for her date have. I bought the pictures, and with Bob, taking almost as much invented the lady. It was swell procare as she always used when she tection against the g dressed for the office. mammas of this town. Is it all The next morning, after Dr. Pol- right now, little Miss Puritan? lack had returnetj from the hospital, Helen knocked at his door. May I speak to you a minute, Measuring Lights Speed Doctor? Is Basic Scientific Study He smiled down at Of course. Next to the final week of your vaWhats the matter, Helen? cation the fastest her. moving thing in Tired? Youve lost your nice color. known universe is light, which the She shook her head, impatient has a velocity in round numbers of with the interruption. miles a second. 186,000 I am going to be married in three Scientists measured the speed of weeks. light about 250 years ago, but they Married! Helen, you cant. keep on measuring it even today beThen after a second, Who is it? No one you know. Bob Wether-al- l. cause improvements in technique keep on making it possible to do , How long have you known him? a more exacting job of measuring. Science has good reasons for wantAbout a week? ing to know the speed of light within Since I was fourteen. You cftnt love that fellow. Ive the precision of a gnats eyebrow. never heard you even speak of It is the very cornerstone of no end of basic, practical researches in oth--' hiln. Do you tell me all your private er branches of science. The more precisely the scientists affairs? So thatfs it! Im only fit to be refine their experimental determinaspoken to on business. He dropped tions of the velocity of light the in his chair and leaned towards her, more trouble they get themselves pleadingly. Helen, I thought wed into. For it begins to appear that been friends. Havent we? possibly light itself has no fixed veIve always felt friendly toward locity. The whole perplexing question has you. Doctor. Even to herself she sounded stiff and cold. been reviewed in Scientific AmeriHe drew back and shrugged help- can by Douglas W. F. Mayer, a lessly. physicist. Twelve years ago a Lont Thats that. Well, get married don scientist named Gheury de Bray then. assembled all the results of all the Only yesterday, you, yourself, determinations of lights velocity said it was what I needed. previously made, and pointed out For a second he stared at her that these indicated that every year curiously. Then he laughed but there light seemed to move about three was no amusement in his voice. miles a second slower. When dealI did say something but hardly ing with such small amounts as in this connection. Never mind. I only three miles in 186,000 it is exwant you to be happy. Thats all tremely difficult to make sure that that counts in this world, just happi- the changes noted were not due ness. merely to imperceptible variations Uneasily she changed the subject. in the method of measurement, . Ill break in another girl before Therefore, the question hangs fire I leave. today with the feeling among sciYou cant leave. I couldnt get entists that if future tests substantiate the suspicion that the speed of along without you. She shook her head, thinking bit- light, long supposed to be the most terly, Alma is right, all he cares fixed thing in the whole universe, is not absolutely fixed, they will once about is my efficiency. He can let me have you from more have to start all over again and revise a large part of science. nine till five. - , man-huntin- VP SHE GOES The radiosonde g miniature broadcasting station, being sent aloft from the bridge of a Coast Guard cutter. In recent years, however, much By WILLIAM NUGENT has been taken of the guess-wor- k famous With the rise of aviation, WASHINGTON. TheMark away. Twain by has through the years become so traditional and so often repeated that most of us are inclined to agree that the weather is something we cant do much about. However, in our deep appreciation of the sagacity of the immortal Mark Twain we lose sight of the fact that the weather forecaster is just about the bravest man in the world when he makes a forecast for tomorrows weather. Guess-Wor- k Eliminated. He has about as much information to go on as the doctor who receives a telephone call from a man who says he has a temperature and wants the good doctor to tell him whether he has measles or menindigitis. The weather forecasters to a based be must large agnosis extent upon the surface weather map, and this map gives comparatively meager information of the atmospheric conditions at the higher altitudes where most of our weather is produced. the general interest in upper air conditions has increased- and aircraft have made it possible to obtain upper air observations more frequently and in more localities than formerly with sounding balloons and kites. The radiosonde, a miniature broadcasting station with a parachute attachment which weighs less than two pounds, has come into quite general use for the recording of pressure, temperature and humidity in the upper atmosphere. This robot weather observer is sent aloft attached to a carrier balloon from the decks of floating weather, bureau stations on two coast guard cutters in and from the grounds of six airports in the country. The radiosonde sends back signals which give the temperature, air pressure and humidity at all heights reached- by the - mid-Atlant- ic balloon. Aids Weather Forecasts. The ocean observations, which began only recently, are of great value THERE IT GOES After weather observations are complete, they are immediately radioed to Washington. to the weather bureau, especially along the Atlantic coast. Since last fall, when war broke out in Europe and ships of nearly every European nation ceased sending weather information, the bureau has been seriously handicapped in making forecasts of value to ocean commerce. This observational work, which is gradually expanding into a network of observing stations, yields weather service for all types of uses. The basic observations are the same whether the specific forecast is for use of the aviator, tAe mariner, or the farmer. Everett Mitchell, radio announcer on the National Farm and Home hour, has been telling the farmers of the nation that Its a Beautiful Day in Chicago every day for years and years, but they know his weather report is just a little white lie. The fanners, like the mariners and aviators, still look to the, weather bureau lit their authentic weather reports. Mark Twain, notwithstanding, there are few human activities-whiccan boast complete indifference to weather, present or future. |